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Former van Gaal goalkeeper sinks Dutch

It was not without irony that Sergio Romero became a World Cup semi-final hero for Argentina after making his European club football debut at the team then run by Dutch coach Louis van Gaal.

Add to that the fact that Romero was only second choice last season at Monaco, then his penalty shoot-out heroics Wednesday grow even more. The internet community duly picked the 27-year-old Romero for the man-of-the-match honour after he saved spot kicks from Ron Vlaar and Wesley Snijder.

Not surprised was Van Gaal, who was Romero's coach at AZ in his first years there from 2007 until 2009. "I was coach at his first club in Europe. But I didn't teach him penalties," Van Gaal said. Romero said of Van Gaal: "Van Gaal taught me a lot, and how to grow.

He told me a goalkeeper is an 11th player. I grew a lot, I was just 20 years old when I came to Alkmaar. I will forever be grateful." Just a week ago Van Gaal had fielded reserve keeper Tim Krul late in extra time to win the quarter-final shoot-out against Costa Rica, but this time around it was the other goalkeeper who stole the show.

Romero became Dutch champion under Van Gaal in 2009, a season in which he did not let in a goal for 950 minutes. Van Gaal left AZ in 2009 while Romero played for them another two years before moving on to Italy's Sampdoria in 2011, and then on loan at Monaco in the past season, where he was mostly benched.

The last months were tough in Romero and he credited Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella for keeping faith in him. "I told the coach that my gratitude to him and the team is huge. He helped me in the most difficult time of my career. It is tough to be on the subs' bench," Romero said. But Romero is also an Olympic champion from 2008 and now in the World Cup final where mighty Germany will be waiting on Sunday in Rio de Janeiro.

"You will be the hero today, you can make history," Romero was told by captain Javier Mascherano before the deciding shoot-out to decide a dour match in which he had no major save to make in 120 minutes. Sabella said that "Romero has this huge binder" full of information on players and their penalty routines, but Romero admitted that only partially helped him.

"I was thinking a lot of things. The bench helped me where each player could shoot. I thought Robben would shoot right but he shot left," Romero said. Robben and Dirk Kuyt were on target on the night but that was not enough to beat Argentina, who led by Lionel Messi converted all their four.

 

 

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